4/29/08

Tuesday:We finally have internet access in the production office! Feels better being able to communicate in Wittenberge.+ + +The artdepartment had to cover the red train. I went inside, it was abandoned like so many things over here.

Sunday:last night, on our way to Wittenberge we accidentially hit a deer with the car. It died. A. and I carried it away, off the road while waiting for the police, the deer was so beautiful, no visible injuries, I still feel his legs and weight in my hands, so sad. I was’nt driving but it was my car.I rarely enjoy driving, I am always aware of the danger. Why don't they finally invent something more intelligent for individual transportation. But this is Germany, a country without speedlimit and the biggest carlobby in the world.While writing this I am listening to the sound of whining motors, Wittenberge is crowded with young men meeting for a VW car convention.+ + +The next day we were shooting a scene with this female deer, the coincidence felt strange.

4/26/08

After a working day in Berlin I had the pleasure to spend the last 2 days with this gorgious girls in the house in Bad Sarow. My daughter and her best friend M. They know each other since M. was born, three weeks after L. was born. The girls are as different as possible but as the pictures will tell, they are always just happy beeing together, they never fight, they discuss and always find a peaceful solution.I have to go back to Wittenberge tonight I hope I will have internet access this week.More impressions of our perfect weekend, they played Circus this morningOne of the numerous picnics we had in the last two daysIncredible green field at an organic farm where we went to buy some food and had a look at all the happy animals.

4/23/08

Made for the film: a perfect treehouse and A making patina for worn in and dirty trousers, she is one of the three wonderful women supporting me in the costumedepartment.Found in a shed where our catering was situated, a window covered with linings of coats and a wall.

The city is depressing and deserted but the countryside is beautiful and the night before we started shooting, spring arrived with such a bursting power.

In the car I am listening to Robert Wyatts song "Shipbuilding", loud and again and again, such a distinguished song, number eleven on the CD, L made for me. I still love getting customized tapes/Cds, I enjoy every single song.

The production office and our huge costume room is located in a former sewingmachine factory. Until world war two it was SINGER, after 1945 VERITAS, in the GDR it became a nationally owned company, now it is abandoned, Germany is murmuring history, traces and demons everywhere. Nearly 20 Years after the wall came down one can feel and smell the former system.

4/16/08

Meine Freundin C. hat heute ihre Ausstellungseröffnung in Köln, ich wäre so gerne hingefahren, ich denke an sie und hier ist ein Foto einer Zeichnung das sie mir geschickt hat daß dort auch zu sehen sein wird. So schön!+ + + My dear friend C. has her opening tonight in cologne. I wish I would have made it there, my thoughts are with her and this is a photo of a copy of a drawing she sent me which will be part of the exhibition. So beautiful!

4/14/08

Für mich die schönste Strasse Berlins, ich versuche sie immer zu fahren wenn ich von Osten nach Westen muss. Auf der einen Seite ist der Park, der riesige Tiergarten, auf der anderen Seite der Potsdamerplatz mit seinen nicht immer gelungenen modernistischen Gebäuden, vorbei an der Philharmonie und weiter an den Botschaften zieht sie eine Schneise, die Grenze zwischen Stadt und Natur. * * *I think this is the most beautiful road in Berlin. I always try to take it when I am driving from the east to the west. On one side you have the huge and beautiful park Tiergarten and on the other side the modernistic but not always really good architecture of the buildings on Potsdamer Platz, then passing the Philharmonie via some embassys it is like a forest aile, deviding nature and city.

4/10/08

Kostas Murkudis and Pulver are two of my favourite local fashion designers. I visited their websites today because I was asked by an actress what I think she could wear for a red carpet event and if I could recommend any german Designer and make the contact for her. I thought they were both perfect: Pulver has this understatement drama and K. Murkudis is just so beautifully sophisticated.If I do costumes I always try to stay away from fashion as much as possible to get not too much influenced, it´s like drinking no alcohol its all about staying sober, fashionwise. As references or inspiration I just pull out pictures or books that I truly liked for a long period, I want the costumes to be as effortless and normal at most elegant as I think they should be for an intelligent film.But fashion, thats my other love/hate relationship, it's such an conflictive item for me, I's based on changes in every season, but I think I really just like it if it lasts. If fashion is really timeless, elegant and sexy, thats perfection to me, but I still want to see something surprisingly new and good, once in a while...

4/9/08

Neue Nationalgalerie by Mies van der Rohe, decorated with colourful banners, part of the Berlin Biennale, picture taken out of my car today

I wish I would have the time to visit events like the one above, spend more time with family and friends, to be able to show You more inspiring pictures and more of my personal work and ideas. But my days are packed with endless fittings, driving and running around hunting fabrics, trousers, dresses, bras, belts, shoes, things like the perfect worn in and boring T-shirt and just getting everything organized, 10 days before we start shooting. l really hate/love my job! It is always hard to stay really concentrated and enthusiastic, but it is a big challenge too to work with so many people a feature film needs to get prepared and done.But I am really looking forward to spending more time on realizing some of my own little ideas and sharing them here, as soon as everything calmed down a little bit.

4/6/08

4/5/08

What a wonderful exhibition! Really strong! The story behind this piece was to help the artists mother out of her grief because of the loss of her husband by involving her into art. After she was displaced out of her house due to urban development in China they "inventoried" her overboarding household, typical for her generation, affected by war, hunger and economy of Scarcity, they made her huge collection of everyday items into that wonderful show. Thank you A. for the recommendation.

Even it was a little bit late yesterday evening we decided to make woolen pompons. Fortunately I have a lot of work to do at the moment, otherwise we would have been bathing in woolen pompons, today.The name of the litte creatures my daughter made are Eglis and they are very shy and fragile.

Tonight we have been at a party in our former appartment in the sixth floor. We still live in the same building, we just moved to the third floor briefly before our daughter was born, six years ago. We don't go there often because the friends who are living there now, travel a lot. It is always strange to be back as a guest in an enviroment where you used to live, especially because they did not change much. Lived in rooms are like odeurs and music, they remind you of forgotten things.